When did the Irish become alcoholics?

unclejunior

I was reading a 19th ethnography done in the west of Ireland around 1890. The village was around Belmullet. The ethnography said that the people there rarely drank only during celebrations. Ive been familiar with this town since I was a boy and I always new it as a hard drinking town like any other small village in Ireland. But if drinking back then was not common when did it become common?

Cat Melodeon

Generalise much?

unclejunior

Cat Melodeon wrote: »

Generalise much?

sorry for the generalisation. when did wide spread binge drinking become prevalent in ireland. i thought the 1890s of all times would of been marked by this?

Duckworth_Luas

It may have been one of the last strongholds of Fr Matthew's temperance society. It's influence had already waned in much of Ireland leading to a revival under the PTAA around the time you speak of.

If you think the Irish binge drink now then look up a contemporary account of drinking habits in pre-famine and in particular pre-temperance Ireland. Ireland was a wild, wild country!

shamrock55

answer to your question is since alcohol was invented:D

brianthebard

An ethnography report would not be an accurate or unbiased source. It could have wildly different meanings depending on who wrote it, for who, what they told the locals, all sorts of things. Local newspaper reports would give you an indication of whether there were people binge drinking because they would be up on drunk and disorderly charges if they got of line, and that was reported in the paper like it is now.

Why do you say the 1890s especially would be marked by alcoholism, are you thinking of something specific?

The Scientician

shamrock55 wrote: »

answer to your question is since alcohol was invented:D

Yeah it went a little something like this.

CDfm

could there have been an increase in alchohol supply as had happened in 18th century london with the gin craze

http://www.historytoday.com/thomas-maples/gin-and-georgian-london

price and availability

here is a paper on Ireland - it is not a particularly irish phemomena nor are irish people worse than other nations - just average

but there was a time when just about every business had a liquor licence - so maybe you had an over supply

http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/2262/2759/1/jssisiVOLXXVI1_43.pdf

did production and selling methods change around that time ???

jonniebgood1

The history show on RTE this evening made reference to drinking culture in relation to St. Paddys day. The guest speaker spoke of heavy drinking on St. Patricks day pre-famine time. Apparantly it was seen as an expression of ones independence to drink to excess at that time.

Fratton Fred

Did you know London had a gin epidemic in the second quarter of the 18th century?

Edit: should have read cdfm's post better.

We are all practically teetotal compared to our forefathers.

grenache

I'm pretty sure my history lecturer said that back in the 18th and early 19th century, gin was the drink of the working class / poor with beer and whiskey being solely the reserve of the upper classes. How times have changed!

brianthebard

Fratton Fred wrote: »

We are all practically teetotal compared to our forefathers.

This is true, watching mad men makes you think that the 1960s was just a blur for most people. And that was after the ptaa and the world wars. The 1870s to 1910s were called the great binge weren't they? The biggest alco you can think of today would have been an amatuer compared to people in that period.

ejmaztec

An old Economic and Social History lecturer of mine in England explained that the reason for the entire population of Ireland being regarded as alcoholics, was down to the reputation of the hard-working, hard-drinking navvies in the UK. It was assumed that the rest of the Irish were the same. After that particular generalisation by the English, the label stuck.

unclejunior

ejmaztec wrote: »

An old Economic and Social History lecturer of mine in England explained that the reason for the entire population of Ireland being regarded as alcoholics, was down to the reputation of the hard-working, hard-drinking navvies in the UK. It was assumed that the rest of the Irish were the same. After that particular generalisation by the English, the label stuck.

somehow i dont think its that big a myth after watching the st patricks festivities yesterday

CDfm

unclejunior wrote: »

somehow i dont think its that big a myth after watching the st patricks festivities yesterday

Am I mistaken, but wasn't that St Patrick fella english.

Now St Brendan, a great fella or St Bridget. They are good Irish saints and wont lead you astray.

resistantdoor

When did the Irish become alcoholics?
I think you should re-phrase your question to "when did the entire world become alcoholics?".

CDfm

resistantdoor wrote: »

When did the Irish become alcoholics?
I think you should re-phrase your question to "when did the entire world become alcoholics?".

That assumes a time when it did not happen ?

resistantdoor

CDfm wrote: »

That assumes a time when it did not happen ?

True beans

CDfm

resistantdoor wrote: »

True beans

But beer didnt always have a bad rap - according to some it was like a medieval bottled water.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Beer has been made for about 6,000 years, beginning in ancient Sumeria, and continuing in Egypt at the time of the Pharaohs.[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] [/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In the old cities of medieval Europe people did not know about sanitation, so they threw their garbage in the streets where the rain would wash it away into the rivers. The people who drank water from the wells and rivers became sick, so most people drank beer, which was healthier. A legend tells of St. Arnold in Belgium, a monk who was also a scientist. He studied why rich people lived longer than poor people, and he found that rich people drank beer and wine instead of water. St. Arnold then began a tradition of monastic beer brewing which continues to this day in Belgium, in order to bring cheaper beer to the poor. At this time in history, there were three basic kinds of beer, regular beer which was similar in alcohol strength to today's beers, strong beer, and small beer. Root beer has its roots in small beer. [/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]With beer being the safest form of drinking liquid, which every healthy body needs, it was important to have a very low alcohol beer for an everyday water substitute, especially for children. Small beer was about 2 % alcohol. The alcohol acted as a preservative, and so did some of the bitter-tasting ingredients in the beer. Beer is made like a tea with barley or other grains for sweetness, and hops or other herbs for bitterness. It is boiled or brewed to blend the flavors and kill the bacteria and germs in the water, and then it is cooled and fermented with yeast. The yeast creates the alcohol and the bubbly carbon dioxide. There were three ways to brew small beer; either it was made from the small bits of sugars left in the grains after a strong beer was made, or it was made with a very small quantity of grain, or it was drunk very young and sweet before fermentation was completed. Modern root beer is closest in flavor to the last method because of its high sweetness level, although no modern commercial root beers use yeast or contain any alcohol at all, as I will explain in a moment.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]http://www.bulldogrootbeer.com/RBhistory.htm
[/FONT]

I wonder if these stories are true

ejmaztec

unclejunior wrote: »

somehow i dont think its that big a myth after watching the st patricks festivities yesterday

One day on the piss does not an alcoholic make. People only get a bit wild because they're not used to alcohol.:P

Emme

Apparently the Celt-Iberians of Spain were fond of the beer. They're supposed to be our ancestors.

CDfm

They may have gone to Galway - Brian might know

Irish Forums :: The Irish Message Forums- Irish History Forum- irish bronze age brewery discovery
Irish Author irish bronze age brewery discovery Irish History Forum Irish Message

loveofireland

Sceala Clann Counsellor
Location: NZ

Irish History Forum Discussion: irish bronze age brewery discovery
this is fascinating story of ancient ireland. would you not know .hoho. the irish were brewing drink, back in the cave man days.

two galway archaeologists have put forward a theory that one of the most common ancient monuments around ireland may have been used for brewing ale.
they believe the bronze age fulacht fiadh – horseshoe shaped grass covered mounds which were conventionally thought of as ancient cooking spots – could have been the country’s earliest breweries.
and to prove their belief that an extensive brewing tradition existed in ireland as far back as 2500bc, billy quinn and declan moore recreated the process.
after just three hours of hard work – and three days of patiently waiting for it to ferment – the men enjoyed a pint of the fruits of their labour.
three hundred litres of water was transformed into a “very palatable” 110 litres of frothy ale with minimal work.
“it tasted really good,” said mr quinn, of moore archaeological and environmental services.
“we were very surprised. even a professional brewer we had working with us compared it favourably to his own.
“it tasted like a traditional ale, but was sweeter because there were no hops in it.” mr quinn said it was while nursing a hangover one morning – and discussing the natural predisposition of all men to seek means to alter their minds – he came to the startling conclusion that fulachts could have been the country’s earliest breweries.
the two set out to investigate their theory in a journey which took them across europe in search of further evidence.
on their return, they used an old wooden trough filled with water and added heated stones. after achieving an optimum temperature of 60-70°C they began to add milled barley and approximately 45 minutes later simply baled the final product into fermentation vessels.
they added natural wild flavourings (taking care to avoid anything toxic or hallucinogenic) and yeast after cooling the vessels in a bath of cold water for several hours.
“including the leftover liquid we could easily have produced up to 300 litres of this most basic ale,” added mr moore.

the men have since made two more batches of beer – the second which was stronger and the third which they describe as a disaster – but tomorrow plan to start work on batch number four which they hope will taste as good as their first.
the archaeologists – who reveal their experiment in full in next months archaeology ireland – point out that although their theory is based solely on circumstantial and experimental evidence, they believe that, although probably multifunctional in nature, a primary use of the fulacht fiadh was for brewing beer.

http://www.sceala.com/phpBB2/irish-forums-23402.html

dpe

CDfm wrote: »

Am I mistaken, but wasn't that St Patrick fella english.

Welsh, technically.

resistantdoor wrote: »

When did the Irish become alcoholics?
I think you should re-phrase your question to "when did the entire world become alcoholics?".

Actually the whole world is drinking far less than it used to even 30 years ago. Its one of the few areas where manufacturers facing saturated/declining markets at home, can't look to the far east for huge growth, because east Asians have a bit of a tolerance problem for alcohol (not all, but a significant proportion of east Asians can't really drink booze at all). That's why you're seeing lots of mergers and consolidation in the alcohol industry, and why stories in the press (particularly the British press) about a rise in binge drinking are a load of crap, young people have always "binge drunk", and then most simply grow out of it.

CDfm wrote: »

But beer didnt always have a bad rap - according to some it was like a medieval bottled water.

This is spot on, no-one in their right mind drank water until the great sanitation projects in the late Victorian era started to make water safe to drink. Everyone drank beer or watered wine because it was the only way not to get the ****s or worse.

As for the original question, the Irish reputation for drinking is largely a foreign invention.

tan11ie

I wish Alcohol was BANNED!!! :mad: